


Statement of The Timekeeper

by Grumpyvitti



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: I wanted an excuse to write about the library of a;exandria, Original Statement (The Magnus Archives), Statement Fic (The Magnus Archives)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:40:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24259783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grumpyvitti/pseuds/Grumpyvitti
Summary: Statement of a being referring to themselves as, ‘The Timekeeper,’ regarding the Library of Alexandria and its Archivist. Statement taken directly from subject on the xx/xx/xx.
Kudos: 7





	Statement of The Timekeeper

[ARCHIVIST}  
Statement of a being referring to themselves as, ‘The Timekeeper,’ regarding the Library of Alexandria and its Archivist. Statement taken directly from subject on the xx/xx/xx.

Statement begins.

[TIMEKEEPER]  
Statement begins…

I suppose I do not know where my statement would begin. Perhaps it should begin with the beginning of time, the Big Bang. Or perhaps the beginning of humans, the beginning of true ‘intelligent’ life. You see Archivist I cannot begin a statement as I have no beginning. I have simply always been.

We serve the same entity, different branches of the same family tree. The line of Archivist has always been long, your kind never last long, always running, desperate for more, more, more. I do not search, I simply receive what is presented to me, perhaps the explanation for why there has only been one timekeeper.

I could tell you of one of your predecessors. Yes, I suppose that shall be our beginning, another life of the many I have seen begin before.

Well then, Alexander was born in what you would recognise as the 7th June 28 BC, named after a once great conqueror whose name stood strong against the winds of death. His parents had hoped for a soldier or a politician, someone’s who’s name, like the conqueror’s would survive the test of time. Alexander’s name never did survive, lost in the sands like his still breathing corpse.

But they didn’t know this at the time, so when it came time for school, Alexander arrived with the name of a conqueror and the gleam of a scholar in his eyes. He became the best of his class, excelling in all but mathematics, but still he wanted to learn more.

When the day inevitably arrived when his teachers could no longer feed him answers that would quell the hunger in his heart, Alexander turned to the library.  
Oh yes, I can see you understand the direction of this statement, fitting I should tell you an unanswered question you’ve pondered for so long. A statement recorded by Gertrude Robinson on the 5th of September 1997. Consider this a gift from a brother.

The first time Alexander heard of the Library of Alexandria, it seemed pre-destined that he should share his name with what he believed could finally calm his mind. Perhaps his parents had named him for a scholar rather than the soldier they would never get. They hadn’t, but something else had marked Alexander as a scholar since his childhood, marked him as an Archivist.

We can never escape these pre-determined routes created for us, Archivist, it is difficult to out-run an entity that knows all, that sees all, though I admit to never having tried. I’ve seen your kind try though, and you never manage it, always crawling back to your little archives desperate for the poison you so willingly swallow.  
Like you, Alexander did not know what he was Becoming when he first entered the library. Unlike you, he embraced it, wrapping tendrils of inhuman knowledge around his mind, Seeing all he could possibly know. The first time The Archivist noticed he did not need to sleep; he spent the night reading in his Library. The first time it noticed it did not need to eat, it instead fed the hunger with scrolls from now long forgotten philosophers.

It was no wonder that when the Desolation, a long-standing enemy of our patron, burned the Library to the ground, its Archivist lived. Its lungs no longer needing to breathe, it wrapped the smoke around itself like a friend, to See all it could learn from this new experiment.

The Archivist had not realised that without its Library, it was nothing. And as the scrolls and books burned around it, so did its mind, smoke severing the careful ties that had kept all it together. 

Of course, the Eye has no need for an Archivist without a mind, and so let the smoke sever not only its mind but also its link with its beloved entity. 

And so, the Archivist was left to wander the deserts, hungry for a knowledge its mind no longer remembers but still craves. 

And so, the Beholding moved onto the next.

It’s as I said, your kind never last long.

[ARCHIVIST}  
Statement ends.


End file.
